“Night Song”, shot entirely in a single take and without the teeniest bit of post-editing, sees a scramble of projected black and white characters, shapes, and words transforming vocalist and director Kim Krans’ face and form into entirely new compositions every couple seconds. In the brief Q&A below, Krans addresses the concept behind the video and its creation process, and a small gallery of her visual art can be viewed. Their upcoming record, Grace & Lies, will be released via No Quarter Records this month.

As a band member and the director of the music video, how much of your life would you say is rooted in art and music, respectively? Was this a new type of project for you?

I would say 100% of my life is rooted in art, and that’s the filter I make music through. A bonus of being in a band is that I get to make all types of visual things (live performances, videos, costumes, album artwork) under one umbrella. I’ve done lots of video projects for Family Band but this is the first one explicitly using my drawings, which made it really fun for me.

Was it always decided that the film would largely be in black and white?

Yes. Optical tricks and illusions are so fun in black and white. Also the video has a lo-fi, almost zine-like feeling to it, and I wanted to keep it that way. Once you start messing around with colors, making things look too hi-fi and earnest, the viewer’s expectations shift. I wanted the images dumbed down so that when a cat throws a ball to another cat it’s a big deal. The narrative depended on that simplicity.

Family Band – “Night Song” Music VideoINTERVIEW CONTINUED BELOW

There are a wide array of images presented, some more abstract and some very discernible and cartoonish. How were the projected drawings chosen, and was there any attempt at a narrative?

I initially thought this video would be all patterns, shapes, and trippy optical effects. But once I started messing around with the drawings projected on to the face there were too many weird and funny possibilities to pass up. The characters started coming out of nowhere and I just embraced it. Little narratives popped up here and there and I fleshed those out without getting tied into a linear storyline.

What was the approach you took to transfer the proportions from the drawing medium to real life? Was there difficulty in having the images line up as desired?

Every day I would work on the drawings, tweaking the shapes and the narratives. After dark we would project the drawings over my face to see how the images were lining up, and which parts of the storyline were the most fun to watch. I focused mostly on the eyes. If the eyes matched up, then just about any character would work, even Garfield or Yoda.

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Vivian Hua (華婷婷) wears a lot of random hats, but has somewhat mastered globetrotting like a hobo and evading traditional 9-to-5 work schedules. She enjoys observing human idiosyncrasies perhaps more than anything and is a magnet for homeless people (a joy) and bug bites of all types (absolutely terrible). Through her work, she hopes to embrace the temporary while documenting the nostalgic, using divination and dream symbolism as guides through the cosmic maze. Additional writing, art, video, and other crap, like her astrological chart, can be seen at www.inallthings-patterns.net. She is the Editor-in-Chief of REDEFINE magazine, and quite appreciates unsolicited personal e-mails just to shoot the shit and narrow the gaps between human beings.